Channels

Photos: Ido Erez, Alex Kolomoisky
Galant is seizing the opportunity to settle the score with his bitter rival Ya'alon
Photos: Ido Erez, Alex Kolomoisky
Yossi Yehoshua

The time tunnel of the elections

Op-ed: Before our politicians willingly enter the Hamas tunnels for campaign purposes, they should consider their own part in the failures of Operation Protective Edge.

Thirty days before the elections, Operation Protective Edge – which for many people is still a bleeding open wound – is being slammed down on the table. But before the different candidates seize the opportunity, they should stop and think for a moment about their own part in the failures surrounding the war.

  

 

On Friday, Yedioth Ahronoth reported that some people had attempted to cover up the top command's failures through the citation awards. The celebrations concealed the investigations into the operation which have yet to be made public, investigations which point to serious gaps in intelligence, which reached the point of a public conflict at the General Staff forum between Southern Command chief Sami Turgeman and former Military Intelligence director Aviv Kochavi.

 

During the confrontation, Turgeman rightfully blamed the intelligence gaps on the Intelligence Directorate's insufficient focus on Gaza, which led to a deficient quality and scope of information in regards to the Hamas leadership, its command and control systems and its long-range rocket arsenal.

 

About the tunnels, in the past few months the General Staff has been reciting the difference between "knowledge" and "awareness." That's how they are trying to explain the gap between the fact that Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon was photographed inside a Hamas tunnel on Israeli territory more than a year ago, and the fact that the cabinet ministers failed to internalize the severity of the threat of the 32 tunnels.

 

The Military Intelligence director presented the cabinet members, particularly Ya'alon and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with a monthly report on the progress made in the tunnel project. So everyone knew about the danger, including Minister Naftali Bennett. And they were all involved in the decision made by Netanyahu and Ya'alon not to act on this issue.

 

Defense Minister Ya'alon in a Hamas tunnel in October 2013. The difference between 'knowledge' and 'awareness' (Photo: Alon Bason, Defense Ministry)
Defense Minister Ya'alon in a Hamas tunnel in October 2013. The difference between 'knowledge' and 'awareness' (Photo: Alon Bason, Defense Ministry)

 

This decision to avoid doing anything became even more outrageous on the first 10 days of the operation: There were warnings about an infiltration from below the ground, but no decision was made to thwart them. The threat became more tangible than ever only when 13 terrorists came out of a tunnel shaft near Kibbutz Sufa, and Netanyahu and Ya'alon were left with no other choice but to order the army to launch a ground operation instead of signing a ceasefire with Hamas.

 

It's interesting that according to foreign reports, our leaders did see it fit to execute the assassination of senior Hezbollah members and the Iranian general – before the latter execute the plan to take over the Golan Heights. But when it came to acting against the tunnels, which posed a more serious and immediate threat, they chose to dawdle.

 

The criticism voiced by former Southern Command chief Yoav Galant should also be seen as an opportunity to settle the score with one of his bitter rivals, Defense Minister Ya'alon, for his unwillingness to even letting him compete for the role of chief of staff. Galant should also be careful with his statements about Gaza and exercise some humility: There will likely no longer be short wars here, so he had better not commit to what he will do in the next operation.

 

The only one who has yet to mention the tunnels and Protective Edge in his campaign so far is the prime minister – and he probably knows very well why.

 

So before all our politicians willingly enter this tunnel for campaign purposes, they should consider their part in the failure very well, and ask themselves whether they will come out of the tunnel safely like Lieutenant Eitan Fund did.

 


פרסום ראשון: 02.16.15, 00:20
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment